Thursday, September 04, 2008

Republican Gymnastics

Yah, more politics, feel free to move on.

So who else watched the RNC speeches last night?

For everyone who bitches about the Obama cultists, please step into your basement before tossing those stones... you might break your glass house otherwise.

It was like watching an evangelical revival. Carefully worded and timed speeches, which are to be expected of course, and a crowd delirious whenever a talking point or well-trod Obama attack was mentioned. It's no different than watching the Dems.

Giuliani is a tool, plain and simple. He had some decent points in there, but then he turns to his trusted 9/11 with that big image of NYC in the background and I nearly puked. His smarmy jokes and jabs were occasionally amusing, but mostly insulting. They came off as the defensive attempts of someone who knows they don't have much meat to back up their claims and want to distract you from looking closer.

And Palin? Wow... they certainly picked someone who can read nearly as well as that half-black dude on the other side of the fence.

I did like this quote though:

"We suspended the state fuel tax and championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. I told the Congress "thanks, but no thanks" on that bridge to nowhere. If our state wanted to build a bridge, we were going to build it ourselves."

Kind of goes contrary to this one from last September:

"Ketchikan desires a better way to reach the airport, but the $398 million bridge is not the answer. Despite the work of our congressional delegation, we are about $329 million short of full funding for the bridge project, and it’s clear that Congress has little interest in spending any more money on a bridge between Ketchikan and Gravina Island. Much of the public’s attitude toward Alaska bridges is based on inaccurate portrayals of the projects here. But we need to focus on what we can do, rather than fight over what has happened."

You see, the "bridge to nowhere" was scuttled because Congress changed the funding option. They would no longer allow the money to cover the bulk of the costs, and forced Alaska to spend it elsewhere. Palin had NOTHING to do with ending it, and in fact was obviously upset about it.

Or this one:

"When oil and gas prices went up dramatically and filled up the state treasury, I sent a large share of that revenue back where it belonged: directly to the people of Alaska."

The Alaska Permanent Fun was set up in 1977! It's been MANDATED for over TWENTY THIRTY YEARS to give a dividend derived from oil profits back to the citizens of Alaska. Over $1 billion is given to the citizens every year! Again, Palin has nothing to do with this.

There's lots more in the speeches, but I think I'm actually going to do some work now to clear my head. Fuck, I'M the laziest person I know and I was able to find the truth behind those statements in about 30 seconds. The fact that politicians get away with this shit on a regular basis speaks volumes for the ignorance of their followers.

I won't even go near (yet) the bending and twisting the right-wing talking heads are doing in regards to Bristol Palin's pregnancy.

And now that you're ready to call me a left-wing commie or something, I still maintain that Obama is full of shit, and the Democrats (much like our Liberals up here) are a bunch of political pussies. I just wish that politicians would actually discuss the issues in some sort of depth, and highlight their strengths, instead of trying so hard to cover their ass and make themselves look good that it becomes painfully easy to blast holes in their claims. The GOP has a lot to offer... you know, if they actually were Republicans and not Neocons. The Dems also have a lot to offfer, if only they had a pair. Is it so hard to find a middle ground of fiscal AND social responsibility?

I guess I'll have to go back to some Dem speeches and poke some holes there too.

Hey, the campaiging up here hasn't really started yet, so I'll keep watching the dog and pony shows to the south.

We'll all end up with the governments we deserve.

4 comments:

TenMile said...

Ah, that is somewhat over thirty years, Astin. Never mind. I enjoyed the refund checks while I got them.

Oh! Never forget, you're watching politicians. Their lips are moving.

Astin said...

Right... counting. I never claimed to be good at basic math, but I knew something was wrong when I typed that.

OhCaptain said...

Too bad you weren't around when we voted Jesse Ventura into the governorship here. He crushed everyone in the debates because he did something no other politician had ever done before. He answer the questions and even better, when he didn't know the answer to a specific question, he said he don't know and would be glad to research it and get back.

Now, whether or not his leadership was effective (I actually thought it was), his place in political history is clear. He just answered the damn questions.

Astin said...

Oh, I really liked Ventura when he got in. That was some straight-talking.